Thursday, October 27, 2005

Happy October 27th

Just to clear some stuff up:

First, our resident yankee fan is getting restless for that last quiz answer, telling me that he feels that he has the answer right and that I should just move on to the next quiz. Terrible job. Much like the yanks of late, you're close. And I decide when the quizzes begin and end. These quizzes are supposed to be fun. This isn't a yankee blog.

And for BSM, who asked (about a thousand times more politely than yankee boy) about Doris Kearns Goodwin. When I said "NWA" I was just abbreviating "Northwest Airlines." The weird thing is that their planes actually say "NWA" on them now. Since she's on the board there, and NWA workers are on strike, they're trying to make their beef public, and one way is to go and yell at the one member of their board who does public speaking engagements. And recently she was accused of plagiarism, which I believe got her kicked off her spot on that PBS NewsHour show.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Good Win

I just watched many hours of a five-plus hour baseball game. The guy who won it was wearing TWO of those crazy necklaces. Wouldn't they cancel each other out? And El Duque had one on and left with a stiff neck!

With the 3-0 lead, we got to hear about the only baseball team to ever come back from such a defecit, which was good.

Earlier tonight, I went to see Doris Kearns Goodwin speak at the Union Square B & N. It was very interesting. From the Northwest employees yelling at her and getting carted away by pigs, to the talk of one of our five most honest presidents, Abe Lincoln, to the question from the audience that asked who she's rooting for in the World Series. No mention of plagiarism, though.

She did respond to the Northwest people, who were pissed about her being on NWA's board of directors, saying if they sign her e-mail list, she'll communicate with them, and pointing out that the people there came to hear about Abe Lincoln. It's just so weird that this innocent-looking woman has been so demonized lately. Hey, maybe she's guilty of one or more things, but until I do the research, I'm not saying anything. But I'll always respect her for being a Sox fan and for her writing on American history. The only thing I'm pissed at her for is her choosing not to be in the They Might Be Giants documentary.

Speaking of American history, RIP Rosa Parks, who was responsible for this country's most important moment.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

A Phiten Chan(ce)

Have we all lost our minds? Maybe I'm late on this, but I never actually clicked this link until today. It's an advertisement for these necklaces I've been seeing on ballplayers for awhile. The ones that look like they'd really get in your way if you were trying to play baseball while wearing one.

Turns out these things aren't just necklaces, but maaa-gic rings! They "...stabilize the electrical current flowing through your body, making you feel more relaxed..."

Huh?

So, they're selling tinfoil hats to sane people, basically.

Look, I respect people's totally psycho beliefs. But I'm telling you, you make half of these things out of titanium, and the other half out of plastic and paint them the same color, and I guarantee no one can tell the difference. They've actually got David Ortiz giving a testimonial, which, surprisingly, sounds nothing like the way he actually speaks. And then they've got a golfer saying how it helps him "relax." Yeah, those guys must be ready to drop after all that standing around and chatting with other guys who are also white.

Between what the golfer said and what Ortiz said about this wacky necklace helping him come through in the clutch, it's almost like they're passing it off as some kind of anti-choke ring. An anti-choker, if you will. Maybe A-Rod needs one of these to help him at crunch time.

I know somebody's gonna tell me, "Titanium actually does have a chemical bla bla bla..." And maybe it does. But, again, my view is that all you have to do is TELL someone that the necklace (or the holy water, or the tin foil hat, or the lines in your palm) has special powers, and if they choose to believe, then it will work for them.

This takes me back to that whole thing about "believing."

You may read the above and say, "But A Red Sox Fan In Et Cetera, you said that you think you can make the Red Sox continue to do well by bouncing your knee at a certain rate when seeing that they started doing well only when you started bouncing the knee."

Yeah, that's true. I guess since I don't have a religion, that stuff is all I've got. But my (prevent) defense of it is that I'm a logical person, and I only do what seems logical to me. If the Red Sox are rallying, and then someone walks into the room, and the rally immediately ends, well, it's just gonna have to be their fault. You didn't see me haphazardly walking from room to room right at a point when everything was going just fine with me in a stationary position.

Butterfly effect and being at the game (to cheer, which CAN help the home team) aside, that's really all I can do when rooting for the Sox. Without that, rooting is just sitting there and waiting to see what happens. Maybe it's all the baseball video games, Strat-o-matic, Pursue the Pennant, and made-up dice rolling games I grew up with that make me feel like I'm actually responsible, if only a little tiny bit, for what's going on out on the field, no matter how many hundreds of miles away I am from it.

I do like to do weird stuff, like see if I can see the image of a ghost in a photograph, and stuff like that. And I'll let someone do my Tarot, you know, for fun. And me and my sister used to play with the Ouija board (it told me I'd marry Agatha Cratts one day--I still think my sister was purposely moving it, and when I said, Hey, you're just making it say Agatha Christie!, she changed it to Cratts). But I wouldn't pay money for this stuff or let it rule my life. I just do what I feel naturally. So when I see people believing the Bible, I say, Why do you think this book, clearly written by a human, is absolute truth? It's just someone's opinion. Same with every other religion, and basically any philosophy in the world. But, ironically enough, that's just my opinion. (But it's true. Shhhhhh.)

Some people need religion, so I've heard. While I think that's an outright excuse, I do think that they think it's true. So if that works for them, great. But wait, isn't the electrical current thing anti-religious? Once again, I find myself totally confused. How about this--everybody just do what you gotta do, and don't hurt anybody else. (That includes stealing their money in exchange for a piece of titanium. You're giving Bob Ross' titanium white a bad name.) Hey! My dad used to say that Bob Ross was god. (And if you've watched him paint, or should I say "create," you know what my dad meant.) So I get it now. Bob, titanium, god...it was a sign from Ross.

Everything is clear now. Maybe this necklace isn't a mistake--just a happy accident.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Pre-Season Quiz 4

In the game Combat for the Atari 2600, what happens to indicate that time is running out, (Note: it's the same for any variation, i.e. whether you're playing invisible tank vs. invisible tank or three little planes vs. one big plane or whatever.) AND what happens to your tank or plane when it gets hit by a bullet?

Pre-Season Quiz 3

If the Astros win the World Series in 2005, it will be the first time a team won a WS after losing the first two games on the road since a certain World Series whose first game's first batter later managed a player on one of the rosters of this year's World Series. Name that dude. Both dudes, I guess.

The "Michael"s Have Been Counted

This weekend, while staying up really late due to being all screwed up from my upstairs neighbor playing a keyboard for about the last 84 hours non-stop, I got around to counting the Michaels.

For those too lazy to click on that link, to sum up, they say the word "Michael" a lot in the movie The Lost Boys. And I've done you all the service of counting the Michaels.

The roughest spot was during the part where the four vampires were chanting "Michael." I included each Michael said by each vampire. During one chanting scene there were 88 audible Michaels.

There's also a lot of loud wind in the movie with people yelling stuff underneath. Anytime I was certain I heard a "Mike," "Mikey," or "Michael," I marked it down. Having the movie divided into chapters also made the task easier.

The final tally of the long-awaited "CTM" project:

213.

I wonder if the fictional Santa Carla was in the 213 area code.

Here's a look at the official scoresheet:

Click these hogs to enlarge.You can see what Chan said to me when I was done: "Time well-spent for you, I guess."

As a bonus, when I was done, I was watching an episode of All in the Family, and the grandpa from Lost Boys was guest-starring as a priest. (I imdb'd him to verify, but there's no mistaking that voice.)

Sunday, October 23, 2005

I Think I'm Funny

I almost got to use my "Jenks: Buy Me a Choke" line tonight. Oh well. Someday. As per usual lately, I've found myself rooting against the White Sox these past two nights. But again, I don't really care either way.

I will, however, give you Houston's keys to coming back for a World Series victory:

1. Morgan. If Ensberg performs, the 'stros will catapult to glory.

2. Burk. That's the combination of Burke and Berkman. If those two perform to their capabilities from here on in, look for an orange October.

3. hart. (without that crooked E of Enron.) If these guys play from within, the trophy will find itself down south.

Pre-Season Quiz 2 Solved

The question was "Mike Greenwell was the only Red Sox player since 1960 to do what three years in a row ('89-'91)?"

X has answered that he ended the season three years in a row. That's correct. More specifically, he was the last Red Sox batter of the season.

In the last game of 1989, he grounded into a 6-3 double play to end the eighth in a win vs. Milwaukee.

In the last game of 1990, he grounded into a 4-6-3 double play to end the eighth in a win vs. the White Sox. (He also ended the ALCS, with a ground out to short to end game four.) (And he grounded out to second to end game one, just so you know.)

In the last game of 1991, he grounded out to second to end the game in a loss vs. Milwaukee.

Nothing against Greenwell, I loved the Gator. I just happened to notice this.

If dannydeej were here, he'd say "Next Quiz!" But I'm sure he's on the Supreme Court or something by now. Still, watch for the next quiz soon.

Important World Series Breaking News

Now that I've hooked you in, you gotta hear about my huge victory over Chan in Scrabble last night. I'd already done a seven-letter word, making use of the two blanks I picked early on. I cruised from the start. Late in the game, with a 326-191 lead, I felt that there were three letters left in the bag, so I used three on my turn, ensuring I had one last shot at a seven-letter word. I had the letters AEELNST, which made LEANEST, but I had nowhere to put it. There was an M sticking out, and I discovered that I could do STEELMAN. Now, I don't know if a man who works with steel is really called a "steelman," but, hey, if I lose the challenge, I'm still up by 150 points. So I placed the last seven letters on the board, Chan challenged, and I looked it up. Much to my surprise, I found out that a steelworker IS called a steelman. 20 points plus the 50 for using all my letters, plus the total points left in Chan's hand, and I'd kicked Chan's butt, 431-193.